The present invention generally relates to ceramic materials, more specifically to ceramic materials for use in extreme environments.
Extreme environments such as those found in solid rocket motor (SRM) boost propulsion nozzles, hypersonic and control surfaces are demanding on the structural materials used in them. Carbon based composites are frequently used for such applications but suffer from significant erosion and recession through their service life, thus imposing undesirable limits on design and/or duty cycles. Materials systems that are non-eroding in such environments offer significant improvements in performance and enable more aggressive duty cycles. For example, recent developments have demonstrated near zero erosion behavior of TaC—Ta2C based ceramic throats in aluminized motor nozzle throats. The stability of HfB2—SiC in hypersonic reentry aerothemal heating environments has also been demonstrated. However, these systems are at the upper limits of performance and the capability of their constituent materials.
Active cooling is an approach used in many aerospace systems for heat flux management where a working fluid is available. However, solid rocket motors and reentry vehicles typically do not have such systems and their addition would come with significant penalties in weight and complexity.
Thus, there is a need to provide improved material systems that perform in applications that pose challenging environments. The present invention satisfies this need and provides related advantages as well.